‘Pretty early that morning I had already noticed Maddy wasn’t kicking around very much but had assumed she was having a less active day (which happened regularly),’ she wrote on the social media platform. ‘Dalton put his hand on my belly and asked if she had been kicking. I became uneasy as I realized she still hadn’t moved all day.’

‘Half of everything I read [online] said go [to hospital] immediately, and the other half said that babies run out of room to kick.’

In the end, Ayla and her boyfriend Dayton consulted Ayla’s mum, who urged her to go to hospital as soon as possible. Once there, she was hooked up to monitors – then her midwife arrived, and wasted no time in explaining things were not looking good, and an emergency caesarean was necessary.

‘After about 40 more minutes, Maddy and I were released back to our original room,’ she continued. ‘There I was informed that my placenta had aged prematurely, was calcified, and had basically given up.’

‘This had caused Maddy to not be receiving as much oxygen or food as she needed. This was causing her to try to preserve her energy, which is why she had stopped moving. This also caused her to have low blood sugar upon arrival so she needed to be hooked up to a glucose drip IV her first few days.’

Ultimately, Ayla and Dalton wanted to use their experience to warn other expectant parents to always trust their instincts – and the post has done just that, with nearly 20,000 shares and thousands of comments.

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‘The point in me sharing this is to let anyone else know that things like this DO happen,’ she implores. ‘You know your body and what’s normal for your baby. And BABIES DON’T RUN OUT OF ROOM!! that was the common response I kept seeing. Babies will always kick weather there’s much room or not. IF YOU HAVE DOUBTS, GO IN. GO IN. GO IN. GO IN!!!’

‘Always be safe rather than sorry. Because I almost didn’t. I almost waited till morning to see if anything changed. And had I done that, I wouldn’t have my love.’